


Family Ties

by BiteMeTechie (The_Injustice_Trinity)



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Family, Food, Gen, Italian Mafia, Uneasy Truces Between Mafia Dons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 13:40:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18874333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Injustice_Trinity/pseuds/BiteMeTechie
Summary: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."Some Gotham crime families straddle the delicate line between both.





	Family Ties

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for the Free For All Fic For All--or FFAFFA for short--over on tumblr, specifically the 2014 round. I somehow never actually posted this one anywhere? Anyway, shhh, just pretend it hasn’t taken me five years to get back to uploading these.
> 
>  **Prompt** : Falcone and/or Maroni family piece
> 
>  **Notes** : This fiddles with continuity a little, but the Gotham mafia families don’t have much in the way of solid, consistent canon and it seems always up for retcon, so I’m okay with it. If you must find a place for the story to fit chronologically, set it prior to “The Long Halloween” before everything went to shit for…well, everybody. Possibly even before Batman appears on the scene in Gotham. Also, as I’m from a heavily Italian (and German, but I digress) town, this—particularly the setting—draws from reality.

The house is old. Not in disrepair, but careworn and lived in like all the houses in Gotham’s Little Italy. Kids play ball in the street. Somebody’s grandpa—round and graying—sits on a porch next door with, of all things, an accordion, squeezing out a tune nobody knows the name of but everybody recognizes. Dogs bark from behind chain link fences.  
  
The neighborhood around the house breathes and bustles, paying no attention to the sleek black town car that pulls up in front of it, or the sleek old man who comes out of it. Nobody gawks at Carmine Falcone here. It’s…nice. It makes him want to take off the heavy wool coat and tailored Armani jacket; this is a place for shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow.  
  
“Mister Falcone—“  
  
Carmine holds up a hand. It’s all the gesture needed to silence his escort. “No business here.”  
  
He starts up the walk—not to the front door, but to the side. The kitchen door, the only way to enter an Italian house. Only strangers ever use the front door.  
  
He reaches the gate with its “Beware of Dog” sign that warns of a dog that doesn’t exist and flips the latch. Carmine spares a glance at the small back garden—the tomatoes will be big this year—and reaches for the handle of the screen door.  
  
The inner door bursts inward just as the outer one opens.  
  
“Papa Carmine!”  
  
And suddenly a little ball of energy with big brown eyes and a yellow ribbon in her hair is in his arms, nearly knocking him off the back steps.  
  
“Oh,” he laughs—deep and resonant laughter that forces its way out of him—and swings her up into his arms more fully. “Mi Carina. You’re getting too big for this, don’t you think?”  
  
Carina throws her arms around his neck and tosses her head, the dark waves of her hair tumbling over her shoulder. “I’ll never be too big. Ever.”  
  
“We’ll see if you still feel that way when you break your Papa’s back.”  
  
“Carina!”—Carmine’s daughter-in-law appears in the doorway, her hands white with flour—“Inside. Wash up.”  
  
Carina defiantly huddles closer to her grandfather, but when he gives her a pointed “Listen to your mother,” look, she reluctantly slips from his embrace and runs inside the house.  
  
Carmine steps inside the sunny yellow kitchen with its oversized wooden spoon on the wall and its bunches of garlic hanging over the sink. The air is humid with steam, heavy with the scent of various spices. Three pots bubble merrily on the stove and a slab of dough lies rolled out on one of the countertops next to a bowl of some kind of pasta filling. In the corner furthest from the stove, his grandson bounces with excitement in his high chair, stubby little fingers reaching for him as he cries “Pa! Pa! Pa!”  
  
“What are we having?” he asks as his daughter-in-law plants a kiss on his cheek.  
  
“Don’t get your hopes up—the tortellini is for a potluck at Saint Mary’s.  _We_  are having Greek, as soon as Mario gets back with the olives.”  
  
“Angelina…”  
  
“You eat enough Italian when you  _don’t_  visit. You  _both_  do. Now get out of my kitchen.” She awkwardly pushes at him with her elbows so as not to get any flour on him. “There’s a groove in the living room sofa with your name on it.”  
  
He drops a kiss on his grandson’s head and pinches one chubby, ruddy cheek on his way to the living room where Carina sits in front of the coffee table with her back to him and her legs tucked under her.  
  
“Papa Carmine!” She turns to give him a bright smile. “Come play with us! Papa Sal is teaching me to play cribbage.”  
  
Salvatore Maroni, lounging casually on the sofa with a bunch of wooden pegs in his lap, looks comfortable but still out of place. Of course, Carmine knows he looks just as comfortably out of place. He pulls off his coat and jacket, draping them over the back of one of the easy chairs, and takes a seat.  
  
“Dominoes are more my game, Carina.”  
  
“I’ll get them!” Without further prompting, she leaps from her place on the floor and scampers to her father’s study.  
  
There’s a moment of silence between the two men, but it is quickly—if a little awkwardly—broken.  
  
“ _Greek_  tonight,” Carmine says, settling into his seat. “Your daughter…”  
  
“Does what she wants. I think we’ve established that,” Salvatore says with a wry smile that hints at the private joke of their offspring winding up together against all odds, common sense and the protests of their parents. “But all isn’t lost. I brought wine.”  
  
“Red?”  
  
“Bull’s Blood.”  
  
“The lord bless you and keep you, Salvatore—“ Carmine says, crossing himself, “—but only on Sundays. I want a clear shot at you the rest of the time.”  
  
Carina returns with a small wooden box and dumps its contents on the coffee table.  
  
They play together. The two heads of the most fearsome crime families in Gotham play and drink wine and commiserate. At dinner, they tell old jokes that have to be explained to anyone under fifty. After dinner, their grandchildren trade places on their laps for an hour before bed.   
  
Tomorrow, they can be mob bosses. Tomorrow, they can be rivals. Tonight, this one Sunday out of the month, they’re just grandfathers who adore and are adored by two children who are too small to understand how they could be anything else.


End file.
